S. Awan is a failed journalist, a student of history, a lover of music, film, culture, and an enthusiast of the the controversial and the weird.
Also a musician, and part-time freelance, involuntary human being. Also occasionally lives on the moon. Also is a ghost. And a cigarette butt that hasn't been put out properly; so, you know, there's still, like, smoke coming out of it and stuff...

The highly divisive drama in the US, concerning the ‘Migrant Caravan’ from Central America, is clearly being manipulated and stage-managed by the media and by rival propaganda campaigns that are using vulnerable human beings as tools for mass manipulation and division.

In fact, this isn’t new: this seems to be a re-run of the 2015-onwards Migrant Crisis that destabilised Europe, albeit the American version.

The weaponisation – on both sides of the ‘argument’ – of the migrants and their situation is a contrived, scripted affair, mostly divorced from the reality of the problem and the key points in recent history that are relevant here (namely, what happened in Honduras several years ago – which NO ONE on either side of the idealogical divide seems to be talking about).

I’ll offer a recap on the Honduras situation in a moment – because it’s the elephant in the room that seems to be being glossed over.

But there’s a couple of things to bear in mind.

First, the whole way this is being made to appear and to unfold seems designed for maximum dramatic imagery and to provoke maximum xenophobia. It’s one thing for the rabid ‘Build the Wall’ crowd to see news items about scattered incidents of individual illegal migrants or small groups of asylum seekers – but when the situation is presented as an organised mass of people on their way to the border, it is clearly primed to provoke maximum paranoia and resistance.

Aside from seemingly being to bring the whole ‘Build the Wall’ thing to a head, again, it seems like the overdue American adaptation of what was going on in Europe in 2015/2016, with masses of migrants from Syria, Africa or the Middle East constantly shown arriving on European shores or marching across borders in a way that was clearly meant to seem like an actual invasion.

That situation back then was the spark that lit the fire of right-wing ‘Populism’ in Europe and the West, the rise of extreme right-wing governments or parties, the political crisis in Germany (see here) and, arguably, political crises in Italy, Sweden (see here) and elsewhere. It was also the event (or series of events) that enabled the perceived re-legitimisation of basic racism and xenophobia on a wider scale than most people were expecting.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that, had the ‘Migrant Crisis’ not existed, we would be in alternate timeline where things – politically and socially – would be very different.

The dramatic scenes of this current ‘Migrant Caravan’ heading towards the US seems to recapture all of that mood and those dynamics: almost as if someone decided the US needed its own version of that highly polarising, destabilising crisis. It’s like when a British TV show does really well, there’s usually a remake or adaptation over in the US (take The Office as a prime example): well, the ‘Migrant Caravan’ drama seems like one of those, except adapted for the real world.

The way it is being perceived in the US and played up by those in both the mainstream media and the uglier corners of the Internet – with pretty much a literal countdown to the caravan arriving – all seems pre-fabricated for maximum dramatic effect, maximum toxicity and maximum backlash.

Whether this business of the pipe-bombs being delivered to George Soros and co is designed to be part of that is also a possibility (as per usual, Soros is being blamed by many as the orchestrator of the Migrant Caravan – which may or may not be true).

In fact, Robert Bowers, the Far-Right extremist who carried out the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, apparently was motivated by fear/paranoia about the Migrant Caravan – we’re told he was obsessed with the conspiracy theories that the Migrant Caravan is a ‘Jewish plot’ instigated by George Soros (a theory that has been put out by Info Wars and all the usual lot).

So – regardless of what the truth is about the synagogue shooting or the ‘MAGA Bomber’ affair – this all seems to be part of the same narrative.

This sounds like I’m suggesting the entire thing has been orchestrated as a conspiracy. Actually, that’s not what I think: at least not the conspiracy that most people seem to be talking about.

And nor did I think that about the 2015/2016 Migrant Crisis in Europe: when everyone else seemed to be seeing the Migrant Crisis as a conspiracy to ‘destroy the white race’, my own view was entirely different. But you can see here how much of an aggressive, angry reaction that article got from some people who saw it – who clearly felt that the Migrant Crisis had nothing to do with years of bloodshed and destruction in Syria or decades of poverty and hardship in Sub-Sahran Africa.

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Admittedly, I may have been a touch too provocative with the title of that article: but, nevertheless, some of the reaction demonstrated how toxic and polarised the entire perception of that human crisis was. The synagogue shooter also seems to have subscribed to that same idea that immigration is a conspiracy to wipe out white people. He presumably doesn’t realise that the United States was in fact founded on a conspiracy to wipe out the indigenous population a couple hundred years ago and replace them with white European immigrants.

But whatever. Apples and oranges, I guess.

The Migrant Caravan isn’t just being portrayed to look like the 2015 Migrant Crisis in Europe (the two images above show current Honduran migrants and then Syrians fleeing in 2013), but the same tactics are being employed too (naturally), with fake stories (example), fake images or images that have been deliberately either doctored, mis-dated or misattributed – many of which go viral at lightspeed and determine widespread perceptions of the situation.

The same thing was happening in Europe: where the fake images or stories went viral so quickly and so often that all sense of reality or context was quickly lost.

Examples being how Viktor Orban‘s right-wing government in Hungary forbade media from showing any images of refugee children and insisted on only showing fit young males: a strategy that was adopted by swathes of alt-right media (like American Zionist propagandist Pamela Gellar, for example). For other examples of how fake, viral propaganda was being employed, see this and this. This strategy includes doctored of Photoshopped images (such as faked images of refugees carrying ISIS flags), mis-attributed images (such as photos from 1991 being presented as photos from 2015), or even outright fake stories (such as the recent viral story of Honduran migrants setting fire to American flags).

There’s some of the usual low-grade conspiracy theories being thrown about now too.

Such as President Trump claiming “criminals and unknown Middle-Easterners are mixed” with the migrant caravan: a claim that was seemingly repeated by Vice President Mike Pence – and which may have originated with a ‘FOX and Friends’ presenter claiming that ISIS had fighters travelling with the migrant caravan.

At any rate, it’s straight out of the Alex Jones and Info Warsrepertoire – where they’ve been talking about ‘ISIS’ invading the US from Mexico for several years already.

Let’s reiterate what the actual cause of the Migrant Crisis in Europe was: and then we can come back to what the actual root cause of the ‘Migrant Caravan’ approaching the Mexican border is – so that we can see how it’s essentially the same story (albeit much smaller in scale) and being manipulated in the same way.

The Migrant Crisis that ended up doing so much damage to European politics was created, enabled or exacerbated by these simple things: the French/British/American-led NATO military intervention in Libya in 2011, the War in Syria, and general poverty and hardship in parts of Africa.

Now, we could spend hours or days talking about African poverty and hardship and what the various causes are, so let’s table that. The two biggest catalysts for the Migrant Crisis were Libya and Syria. The three routes the mass migration was following into Europe were the Libyan coast to Italy, the Mediterranean from Syria or from Syria through Turkey.

Note that none of what happened in Europe would’ve happened if the West had not interfered militarily in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi and create chaos. It’s important to note that – to see how it relates to the Central American Migrant Caravan.

As I noted back in 2015, Gaddafi himself had even predicted a migrant crisis would unfold across the Mediterranean if he was toppled. What very few commentators during the Migrant Crisis were acknowledging was that Gaddafi’s Libya had – prior to 2011 – not only been stemming any movement of migrants from Africa across to Italy, but had itself been the DESTINATION for most migrants coming up from Sub-Saharan Africa.

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All of that of course changed when Britain, France and the US led the way in destroying that state and destabilising the country. From that point on, militias and criminal gangs saw how much money was to be made by fleecing the poor migrants of whatever funds they had and then launching them off towards Europe, via Italy, on whatever gaffer-taped pieces of shit qualified as ‘boats’.

The African migrants themselves can hardly be vilified either: led to believe for their entire lives that Europe and the West is the land of human rights, prosperity and opportunity, why wouldn’t they seek to escape harsh, oppressive lives and find something better? The extraordinary lengths and perils they endured to even reach Europe demonstrates how desperate they were and how bad the situations are/were in their countries.

As for Syria, while many of the Syrian refugees were no doubt fleeing the Assad regime, many or most were fleeing the Islamic State group, various jihadist militias or just the general warfare, death and destruction. The US and the West certainly had a great deal to do with what happened in Syria.

Either way, both the collapse of Libya and the bloody chaos of Syria were the chief factors in the mass exodus of people on that kind of scale.

A mass exodus that was absolutely milked for every last drop it was worth by devious propagandists in order to spread mass paranoia, fear and anxiety and use it to steer Western politics and public opinion in a different, uglier direction.

Now, what does any of this have to do with the ‘Migrant Caravan’ heading for the United States’ border?

Well, where did this caravan come from?

All coverage agrees that its point of origin was Honduras: and the majority of the asylum seekers, refugees or migrants (whichever term you prefer) are Honduran, just as the majority of the 2015/16 migrants (at least those coming through Turkey or Greece) were Syrian.

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Well, how much of the mainstream media or so-called ‘alt-media’ coverage in the United States is bothering to talk about why there’s a crisis in Honduras?

The crisis in Honduras has been going on since 2009, when a US-backed right-wing military coup overthrew the government. I’ve written about this before (here), but I’ll just offer a recap for anyone who’s unfamiliar with those events.

It goes back to Hilary Clinton‘s diabolical run as Secretary of State (a run in which she also played a key role in creating the aforementioned destabilisation of Libya), in which she took a lead role in backing the 2009 coup that forced the democratically-elected President Zaleya out of the country and allowed a right-wing regime to take control.

As Consortium Newsnoted years ago, ‘Honduras soon became the murder capital of the world. When the Honduran military removed Zelaya from power, the international community – including the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the European Union – condemned the coup and sought Zelaya’s restoration. But Secretary of State Clinton allied herself with right-wing Republicans in Congress who justified Zelaya’s removal…‘

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The democratically-elected president was forcibly taken from his home (in his pajamas), put on a plane and sent out of the country by the US-backed Honduran military regime in June 2009.

Robert Naiman wrote at the time in Huffington Post; ‘The United Nations, the European Union, and the Organization of American States condemned the coup… Under longstanding and clear-cut US law, all US aid to Honduras except democracy assistance, including all military aid, should have been immediately suspended following the coup…’

But Washington didn’t suspend American aid following the coup.

Naiman continued, ‘By July 24, 2009, the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, knew clearly that the action of the Honduran military to remove President Zelaya on June 28, 2009 constituted a coup‘.

Since that event, Honduras has also been subject to a massive rise in environmentally destructive ‘mega-projects’ and displacement of indigenous communities.

An estimated 30 percent of Honduran land has been taken for such projects across the country, with land and rivers being privatised and communities being uprooted.

Environmental activist, Berta Cáceres (who was murdered in the summer of 2016), had specified Hillary Clinton and the US State Department as being to blame for the coup and for the situation that Honduran people found themselves in thereafter. Cáceres also explained that the illegitimate, US-backed Honduran regime passed oppressive laws that effectively criminalised political protest and social activism. Cáceres characterised it as ‘counter-insurgency’ conducted on behalf of international corporate interests and their seizure of Honduras’s natural resources, with the population being terrorised and hundreds of political activists being murdered.

Honduras now had the world’s highest murder rate. Homicides had risen by 50 percent since the 2009 coup.

As Just Foreign Policynoted several years ago: ‘That’s a key reason that refugees have fled Honduras to the United States… only to find themselves hunted by the Department of Homeland Security raids that Secretary Clinton supported.’

It gets worse. Ties were exposed between the US-backed Honduran police and security forces and the ‘death squads’, with American military training and aid for those security forces ongoing. Among those murdered have been members of the LGBT community, more than a hundred land-rights activists, journalists, human rights lawyers, labor activists, and a number of opposition candidates and community organisers.

The 2009 military coup was carried out by graduates of the highly dubious ‘US Army School of the Americas‘. In the years since the coup, US support for the Honduran regime has continued and also included assisting the regime in the upgrading of its surveillance technology.

In short: the US backed the overthrow of the democratically-elected government, helped prop up a regime that was brutally oppressing its population, seizing vast amounts of land from indigenous populations, and helped train that regime to further suppress the population and keep it under surveillance.

And now people are wondering why all these people from Honduras are trying to flee to the United States?

The situation in Honduras hasn’t improved since then, but is ongoing.

In an election last year in Honduras, there were allegations of vote rigging in favor of the sitting president, causing opposition supporters to take to the streets: within a few days, constitutional rights were suspended, with the army and police given blanket power to crush protesters (as reported by BBC).

The Anti-Media had some very upsetting images and videos of alleged incidents or victms of brutal suppression techniques, including images of a pregnant woman and her unborn baby having been shot.

It is never entirely clear in these situations whether such images can be verified: but there seems to be little question that mass state violence was being used to suppress protest.

As far as I can tell, neither President Trump nor any American politican said much about the situation in Honduras: yet, curiously, it was around this same time that so much was being made of the situation in Venezuela, which involved similar scenarios of mass protest and allegedly violent suppression by state forces. In the Venezuela case, Trump even talked about possibily US military intervention to protect the protesters, echoing the reasons given for the NATO intervention in Libya in 2011.

In fact, there’s been little talk of the Honduras political or social situation in general.

And I would be interested to know whether – amid all this coverage of the ‘Migrant Caravan’, anyone in the media or in political circles is bothering to mention the 2009 coup and the US role in it.

President Trump had nothing to do with any of that, of course – but he and his administration surely knows about those events. But, far as I can tell, nothing has been said about cause and effect – only talk about the migrant ‘invasion’, illegal immigrants and casual conspiracy theories about alleged “Middle-Easterners”.

Also, given that the main villain in the US/Honduras affair was none other than Trump’s supposed arch-nemesis Hillary Clinton, you would think Trump would go out of his way to bring that up – if for nothing else, then at least to further vilify Hillary. That he hasn’t (and that most of the ‘alt-right’ hasn’t either) is more than curious, as these are people who would normally go out of their way to re-affirm Hillary as the Devil.

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Yet there are plenty of conspriacy theories going around that Hillary is herself behind the Migrant Caravan. Whether there is or isn’t any truth to that, it’s still very odd that both anti-Hillary and (generally) pro-Hillary voices are omitting the role she played in the present Honduran crisis.

A simple reading of the dynamics reveals why:the “liberal” or generally anti-Trump people (primarily in the MSM) don’t want to talk about the Honduran coup because it demonises their darling Hillary and is thus seen to play into the hands of Trump and the Trump fan-base.

Meanwhile, the pro-Trump, anti-Hillary and anti-migrant side of the equation don’t want to talk about it because it would undermine the cut-and-paste narrative of the migrants being Bad Folks who the United States doesn’t owe anything to.

And of course it also plays perfectly into the whole ‘Build the Wall’ meme.

In short, both sides of the media equation AND political establishment are engaged in a cover-up designed to whitewash or reframe the reality in order to maintain or play out this scripted cultural/societal ‘civil war’ meme that now dominates Reality-TV show that is America.

Hillary herself, of course, doesn’t want to remind anyone of her role in that mess: but, given her past role, you’d think she’d just fuck off and stay quiet instead of trying to insert herself into the discourse as though she’s some kind of moral authority.

But it’s as if everyone – on either side – wants to play up the tension and division caused by the idea of the ‘Migrant Caravan’, but doesn’t want to actually talk about Honduras or why things are so bad there. Just like, during the European crisis a couple of years ago, hardly anyone in the media or political office was talking about how the NATO intervention against Gaddafi had EVERYTHING to do with why and how this ‘Migrant Crisis’ was now unfolding.

Are there ‘undesirables’ or criminals among the mass of people constituting this movement of people? Maybe – probably. I doubt that describes most of these people, however. Are their ‘ISIS’ fighters in the caravan? I highly doubt it.

And is illegal immigration a good thing? Generally, no.

But then crisis situations and desperation don’t always allow for orderly behaviour. And, at any rate, the United States is simply trying to pretend that it had nothing to do with the Honduras situation – and that, instead, this is just an idealogical issue concerning some migrants who just randomly want to come to the United States.

What I regard as the fake Conspiracy Theory culture or arena (as opposed to the real or genuine research or commentary) is now firmly in place to play its crucial part in spinning the scripted narratives whenever the next ‘event’ arrives – be it a terrorist attack, an election, or something like the Migrant Caravan.

They are simply part of the same pantomime that more mainstream commentary is also playing out.

The real causes of the crises (for which you have to track further back on the timeline) may have been instigated with the full intention of their consequences being put to use in the future. For example, the destruction of Libya to create the Migrant Crisis – in order, in turn, to trigger or power the backlash and the perceived rise of Far-Right parties and groups, etc.

Or, as per this present subject, the crisis in Honduras enabled in 2009 to create the conditions leading us now to a mass exodus towards the United States, etc.

That might not be how it worked. It might simply be unforeseen cause and effect – with the organic consequences simply being milked by vested interests with devious agendas. True Conspirators seldom let any crisis go to waste: they’ll use whatever situation they can to expand or further the agendas.

What is the agenda? Well, take your pick. There’s the orchestrated ‘civil war’ scenario and societal breakdown (see here). The ‘race war’ meme (see here). The deliberate splintering of society for the purposes of divide-and-control (see here). And there might even be a planned fascist takeover that has been biding its time (see here), which needs all this divide-and-conquer psy-op to keep escalating.

Any or all of those could be in play.

And it’s all stuff I’ve been talking about here for some time – though it keeps cropping up in different forms, it’s all part of the same manipulated, scripted programme.

At the same time, the actual Migrant Caravan itself – and the human beings constituting it – are probably not a ‘conspiracy’ at all: but just people who’ve had enough of their situation and want to escape to something safer and better.

But, again, never underestimate real Conspirators’ willingness to use real human suffering as a mere tool for furthering their agendas.

Like this:

Related

Perhaps more people ought to be asking how things can be fixed in these countries of origin. Look at a map of Africa and look at one of Europe. Clearly, all of Africa cannot fit into Europe and that is true also of all Africans migrating northward. Similarly, the US cannot absorb the populations of Central American countries. It will reach the point of life boat ethics. Sure, both major parties are using this caravan for political gains, but the root causes of these migrations need to be addressed.

Some overlap there, but you both raise interesting points that deserve consideration. But as you both have stated, the whole thing is definitely Kabuki theater.

I personally had been clueless about what has gone down in Honduras. That definitely needs to be shared more widely. Brandon’s article mentioned “Rex 84”, which was exposed during the Iran/Contra affair, which I had never heard of either. He provides links to that information in his article.

Thanks Anthony. Yeah, the Honduras facts have been kept quiet (no doubt deliberately) by all sides of the equation. Rex 84 is something I haven’t heard mentioned in a long time either, even though it’s well established fact.

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